Death of the Golden State

Monthly Archives: October 2010

Google Earth has partially cataloged the streets of Tijuana in the “street view” and it is not a pretty sight. The sprawling urban city of 1.5 million butts up against the US border. It has one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere. Google street view shows a dense urban landscape where residents live in total fear of their neighbors. The entire city is covered in massive concrete walls, steel gates, and steel bars. Combine that with the gang graffiti and crumbling roads and it looks like some post apocalyptic landscape. It is so dangerous that the United States Marine Corps recently ended a decades old tradition of letting soldiers take leave in the city.
Click here to explore the real Tijuana.

“The most important thing that we can do is to change the law because the way the system works — again, I just wanna repeat, I’m president, I’m not king. If Congress has laws on the books that says that people who are here who are not documented have to be deported, then I can exercise some flexibility in terms of where we deploy our resources, to focus on people who are really causing problems as a opposed to families who are just trying to work and support themselves,” President Obama told Univision.

Note: Obama released Haitians criminals from detention centers in a unilateral backdoor amnesty. These were illegal aliens from Haiti who have already committed crimes in the United States. They had served time in American jails and prisons and were awaiting deportation. Obama released all of these illegal alien thugs back into society. Some have already committed new crimes. Obama’s comments are absurd. He wants all illegals to stay, no matter how many problems they cause.

Latino MMA fans celebrating Velasquez victory with racial animosity. The new UFC heavyweight champion has “Brown Pride” tattooed on his chest and boasts of being “100% Mexican” despite being born in California. His title match took place in Anaheim where Latino fans waved Mexican flags and signs saying “Brown Pride.”

The irony is a white competitor with “White Pride” tattooed on his chest would be barred from even competing. Velasquez defines himself in racial terms and his Latino fan base love him for it.

After the fight, youtube and internet message boards were filled with tens of thousands of messages from Valasquez fans attacking whites. In fact, praising Velasquez for his victory and attacking white people with profanities and racial slurs seem to go hand in hand for Latino fans.

Partitioning intra- and inter-racial genetic variation

We are all familiar with the mantra of the anti-racist when confronted with facts about race: there is more genetic variation within a race than between races. Is this true? It depends on how one measures genetic variation. Using Fst or AMOVA, the split is typically 85/15 between intra-racial and inter-racial variation. But these measures are based on allele frequency comparisons averaged over individual genes. It’s hard to reconcile an 85/15 split with the following PCA plot, based on 250,000 SNPs:

Let’s look at 4 populations: YRI (Nigerians, left of plot), CEU (Northwestern Europeans, bottom of plot), CHB (Chinese in Beijing, top of plot), and JPT (Japanese in Tokyo, top of plot). Considering that the first two principal components account for 87.8% of the variation, and that the distance between samples in the same population is tiny compared to that between populations, this plot suggests that the 85/15 split is not an adequate description of the intra- vs. inter-racial variation.

One common statistical technique for partitioning variation is ANOVA (to be specific it is partitioning variance, or the variation around a mean). Here is a short introduction to the method.

I took 100,000 random autosomal SNPs from the HapMap 3 data set and determined the genotypes for 100 individuals (excluding children) from CEU and YRI at those positions. For each SNP, I determined which is the most common allele in the overall population (I’ll call this the globally most common allele, or GMCA). I then calculated the total number of GMCAs for each individual, across all SNPs. The GMCA totals where then used with a single factor (population, with 2 levels: CEU and YRI) to perform a one-way ANOVA. This procedure was performed 3 times. (note: the results should be similar if, instead of choosing a ‘GMCA’, I just chose a random allele).

The median ratio of the treatment sum of squares to the total sum of squares was 0.985 (range: 0.979 to 0.986). Racial group explains 98.5% of the variation.

The distribution of GMCA counts within CEU and YRI are relatively normal.

CEU:

YRI:

The variance for CEU and YRI is 36761.77 and 38314.7, respectively. The rule of thumb is that there should be less than a 4-fold difference in the variance of any groups used in the analysis, so this is fine.

A plot of the residual versus fitted values does not suggest problems with heteroscedacity (variance increasing or decreasing with the magnitude of the fitted value):

The residuals look to be fairly normally distributed:

The normal Q-Q plot suggests that normality breaks down at very high and low values, but this does not look worse than some plots I’ve seen which are said to be ok.

So far as I can determine, there are no major violations of the assumptions required for ANOVA.

The 98.5% inter-racial variance is more in line with the PCA plot shown at the beginning. Another approach, instead of using ‘GMCA’, would be to use the eigenvalues for the significant principal components from PCA for the samples in each population. For example, if ANOVA on the values for principal component 1 of the above PCA showed that 99.5% of the variation was between groups, this would be converted to proportion of total variation by multiplying 99.5% by 75.9% (the percentage of variation accounted for by PC1), giving 75.5%. Suppose ANOVA for PC2 showed 95% of variation as inter-group, this would then add 11.3% (0.95 x 0.119), for a total of 86.8%. This would be done for the rest of the significant principal components.

In summary, the 85/15 partitioning of genetic variation is based on a single, limited definition of genetic variation. Methods that consider large numbers of genes can apportion more variation between races.

Whitman waffled on illegal immigration, lost credibility with voters, losing by 13 points.

by James Buchanan

After defeating Steve Poizner in the Republican primary, it looked as though Meg Whitman would simply steamroll the Democrat candidate. Meg Whitman had been the CEO of e-Bay and became a billionaire in the process. The idea of a successful businesswoman running California had a strong appeal, but an over-managed campaign by inept advisers and Whitman’s inability to take a stand on key issues of the greatest importance to California doomed her campaign to failure.

The individual running against Meg Whitman is none other than aging hippie retread, Jerry Brown, the same bungler who allowed California state workers to unionize, which led to salary and pension deals, that are helping to drive California toward bankruptcy. You’d think Whitman might have mentioned that in a few commercials, but her dream team of “genius” political advisers either didn’t think it was important or they were afraid of offending the union members.

A recent news article reports “Democrat Jerry Brown has opened up a wide lead over his Republican challenger, Meg Whitman, with just eight days left before Election Day, a new LA Times/USC poll has found. Brown’s lead over Whitman has jumped to 13 percentage points. Of the voters surveyed, 52% said they would vote for Brown while just 39% said they planned to vote for Whitman.”

Meg Whitman has failed over and over to make her positions clear on the issues. When the Arizona immigration law SB1070 became national news, Whitman could have clearly voiced her support for it, but instead she produced a bewildering answer that it was OK for Arizona, but bad for California because California is bigger. Why should the size of California matter?

Whitman failed to take a clear stand on Proposition 23, a bill to repeal California’s Global Warming Act, which will cost California over a million jobs according to two different studies. If Whitman came out loud and clear supporting Prop. 23 to repeal the Global Warming law, it would have benefited both her and Proposition 23. As things stand now Prop. 23 is losing by 11 points thanks to a barrage of left wings ads and Meg is losing by 13 points. Left wing political ads claim that Prop. 23 will cause electrical rates to shoot up –while the complete opposite is true.

Whitman’s gutless political advisers are apparently telling her to avoid taking a clear position on anything. This however is totally insane. After a while, everyone begins to notice that Whitman is continually speaking like a lawyer and can’t say anything straight.

Whitman came out looking bad again when her illegal alien nanny went public. It’s a little hard to believe that Whitman didn’t know her maid was an illegal alien, considering that the maid was barely able to speak English after being in the US for over 10 years. Whitman didn’t bother to make the effort to hire an American nanny.

What completely killed Meg Whitman’s chances to win were her attempts to pander to Latinos. After telling the John and Ken radio show that she would be “tough as nails” on illegal immigration, she then released ads in Spanish that talked about a “path to citizenship” for illegals. This attempt to take both sides of the illegal alien issue immediately was exposed by the media and talk radio. It was at this point that Meg Whitman lost all her credibility with the White people of California. Her million dollar advisers look like complete imbeciles once again.

Politicians need to decide how they’re going to get a majority. It’s possible to get a majority in California by taking a strong stand against illegal aliens. Even though White people are less than 50 percent in California, Blacks are strongly opposed to illegal immigrants who compete with them for government programs.

Meg’s fuzzy position on illegal immigration and her attempts at pandering to illegals led to her splitting the White vote 41-to-41 with the Democrat, which is an absolutely horrible performance by a Republican. A strong stand against illegal aliens should get 80 percent of the White vote.

A Meg Whitman interview on the immensely popular John and Ken show, which is broadcast throughout California went disastrously wrong. John and Ken tried to get Whitman to take a clear position on Prop. 23 and the illegal alien issue. If Meg had bothered to listen to the John and Ken show like millions of other Californians, she might have been better prepared and realized that she could NOT weasel her way out of answering some basic questions that are of great importance to the people of California. Whitman was reportedly sniffling in the elevator on the way out of the KFI studio. After Meg Whitman’s disaster, Jerry Brown avoided the John and Ken show like the plague.

The people of California want someone who has political beliefs that mirror their own. California is literally being driven bankrupt by illegal aliens and unionized state workers who have salaries and pensions that are totally unsustainable. The crazy California legislature refuses to do anything about these two issues, which will doom the state to bankruptcy.

Maybe it’s just as well that Meg Whitman loses to Jerry Brown. Let the aging hippie retread, Brown take the blame when California eventually goes bankrupt. And if we’re really lucky, these rich egomaniacs will quit running in Republican elections. Whitman doesn’t have the guts to tackle the illegal alien problem, and without deporting millions of illegal aliens, California is going bankrupt. By running in the California race, she squandered $163 million just to lose the election and she also denied California a chance to have a more serious right wing candidate on the Republican ticket.

There are at least three Tea Party candidates running for Senator in the 2010 elections. There’s Rand Paul in Kentucky, Sharon Angle in Nevada and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. The Tea Party played a key role in defeating pro-Amnesty Republican Senators Bob Bennett and Arlen Specter. Bennett not only lost his primary, he placed THIRD scoring only 27 percent. Arlen Specter was even more pathetic. Specter actually fled the Republican Party, ran in the Democrat primary and lost. Both Specter and Bennett supported the 2007 Amnesty Bill, and were seen as liberal “RINO” Republicans.

Anyone familiar with US politics should know how rare it is for an entrenched, multi-term incumbent to be defeated in his own primary. Even John McCain barely squeaked by after spending $21 million and lying about his past support for Amnesty. If the Arizona primary system were closed so that only Republicans could vote for the Republican candidate, McCain would have lost too.

The combined defeat of Specter and Bennett and the primary victories by Rand Paul, Sharon Angle and Christine O’Donnell is already the making of a mini-Revolution. The Jewish mainstream media has been fighting the Tea Party revolution every step of the way. Any embarrassing thing the Jewish media can dig up on the Tea Party candidates going back to their teenage years has gone on the evening news and the Jay Leno Show.

The Tea Party is at least the beginning of a move in the right direction. Most of the Tea Party is against illegal immigration. The acronym “TEA” stands for “Taxed Enough Already”. Most of the Tea Party members are long time conservatives who are sick and tired of a Republican Party of crooks, who are little different from the Democrats.

What led to the Tea Party Revolution? Why are taxes so high? We’re paying for government benefits for tens of millions of Third World parasites. And who’s paying the taxes? Primarily White people, most of whom can’t send their kids to their local public schools because they’re full of Mexicans or Blacks and have become too dangerous. Many White people in big cities today can’t pay for private schools for their kids plus the endless taxes that the Democrats want from them.

Added to that is the bipartisan betrayal (NAFTA and GATT) which led to the outsourcing of millions of American factory jobs. There’s also the massive legal immigration from Asia that has flooded many technical fields, lowered wages and added many White Americans to the ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Considering the long, long list of betrayals against the White American public by our government, they are lucky that all they’re facing so far are electoral defeats of incumbents and the election of a wide range of Tea Party candidates, some of whom are extremely serious and some of whom are novices, who have few plans other than reducing taxes.

This raises the question of whether the Tea Party movement will finish with a few dozen upset victories in 2010 or if the revolution will evolve into a more serious political movement. Lowering taxes will be the first step. The second step will hopefully be the deportation of over 20 million illegal aliens and the revocation of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens.

The Tea Party should be seen as a positive development by even the most jaded and pessimistic Americans. We’ll soon discover the extent of the Tea Party Revolution with the November elections. It’s likely the senior members of the Senate and House will try to bully the TEA Party Senators and Congressmen and block their efforts at reform, but the surviving long term incumbents need to remember that the Tea Party has ended the careers of Senators, who had four and five terms under their belts. Getting in the way of the Tea Party may prove a career-ending decision for even more long-term incumbents in the 2012 elections.

By the 2012 elections, the Tea Party may not be satisfied with the ouster of corrupt politicians; the public could easily be demanding the criminal prosecution of politicians, who lied us into wars or who gave multi-billion dollar kick backs via Stimulus Bills and TARP to their political cronies.

All Signs Point to a Great Correction

What’s new in civilization? We went to Cafayate last night. Our old friend Doug Casey hosted an intimate little dinner – for about 150 people. He’s developing a community down there – the kind of place he wants to live in…surrounded by friends, good food, bright sun, beautiful views…and everything else a man might want.

Whether this is a good idea or not, we can’t say. But it is fun to get together with Doug and his crowd.

Since we were back in Internet range, we checked in with our usual sources. Here’s what we found:

The economy is either growing slowly, or contracting.

Housing is probably going down. Remember, Mr. Market has to destroy the idea that “housing always goes up.” When he’s finished people will think that “housing never goes up.”

Unemployment? People are gradually beginning to realize that the last ten years were the worst for creating new jobs in America’s history. If they keep thinking about it they will realize that it is not just the bust that is destroying jobs; there was something very wrong with the boom too.

Meanwhile, the markets are still calculating, figuring, deciding what things are worth. In the last couple of days, they’ve been thinking that maybe stocks and gold got a little too uppity. Gold has lost more than $50 in the last two days. Stocks lost ground on Tuesday, but bounced up 36 points yesterday.

From all we can tell, the Great Correction continues. And here’s a report from The New York Times that tells us where it leads:

OSAKA, Japan – Like many members of Japan’s middle class, Masato Y. enjoyed a level of affluence two decades ago that was the envy of the world. Masato, a small-business owner, bought a $500,000 condominium, vacationed in Hawaii and drove a late-model Mercedes.

But his living standards slowly crumbled along with Japan’s overall economy. First, he was forced to reduce trips abroad and then eliminate them. Then he traded the Mercedes for a cheaper domestic model. Last year, he sold his condo – for a third of what he paid for it, and for less than what he still owed on the mortgage he took out 17 years ago.

“Japan used to be so flashy and upbeat, but now everyone must live in a dark and subdued way,” said Masato, 49, who asked that his full name not be used because he still cannot repay the $110,000 that he owes on the mortgage.

…For nearly a generation now, [Japan] has been trapped in low growth and a corrosive downward spiral of prices, known as deflation, in the process shriveling from an economic Godzilla to little more than an afterthought in the global economy.

“The US, the UK, Spain, Ireland, they all are going through what Japan went through a decade or so ago,” said Richard Koo, chief economist at Nomura Securities who recently wrote a book about Japan’s lessons for the world. “Millions of individuals and companies see their balance sheets going underwater, so they are using their cash to pay down debt instead of borrowing and spending.”

The reality, however, is exactly the opposite, as pointed out on CBS’ 60 Minutes:

Though the CBS report makes mention of the U-6 unemployment rate, which is roughly 17%, the actual unemployment rate is above 22%, meaning that over one in five Americans are currently unemployed. On a household basis, 28% of households have at least one person who is without work and unable to find work – that’s nearly one in three.

The business owner from the CBS report says that her small business is surviving month to month, something that millions of small businesses across the nation are facing. As more people lose their jobs, less people spend money with local and small businesses. As money contracts, so too does the small business base. As small businesses are eliminated, so too are jobs. The cycle will continue to negatively reinforce itself like this for months, probably years to come.

Many of those in the CBS report were, at one time, top-tier business professionals. Today, they have been unemployed for over two years, spent all of their savings and retirement money, and are literally on the brink of homelessness in many cases.

Even if you are employed today, you are not guaranteed to have a job tomorrow.

As such, consider finding alternate income streams now, today. Is there anything that you can do with your skills today to generate more revenue for savings and emergency funds tomorrow?

It’s better to prepare today, rather than the day after you lose your job.

Depression Within a Depression

In recent months, worshippers at the altar of Keynes have been hyperventilating over the possibility Congress will run a deficit of “only” $1.5 trillion in 2010. They have issued dire proclamations about a replay of the 1937–1938 Depression within the Great Depression. White House favorite and #1 Keynesian on the planet, Paul Krugman, declared that not borrowing an additional $100 billion to hand out to the unemployed for another 99 weeks would surely plunge the country into recession again:

“Suddenly, creating jobs is out, inflicting pain is in. Condemning deficits and refusing to help a still-struggling economy has become the new fashion everywhere, including the United States, where 52 senators voted against extending aid to the unemployed despite the highest rate of long-term joblessness since the 1930s. Many economists, myself included, regard this turn to austerity as a huge mistake. It raises memories of 1937, when F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget helped plunge a recovering economy back into severe recession.” ~ Paul Krugman in NYT

So did Roosevelt’s attempt to balance the budget in 1937 cause the second major downturn in 1938? I’m a trusting soul, but I prefer to verify what is being peddled to me by any economist, especially Paul Krugman.

Ghost of Keynes Past

Today’s Keynesian economists have convinced boobus Americanus that the Great Depression was caused by the Federal Reserve being too tight with monetary policy and the Hoover administration not providing enough fiscal stimulus. Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama used this line of reasoning to ram through an $850 billion pork-laden stimulus package, as well as the purchase of $1.2 trillion of toxic mortgages by the Federal Reserve.

The only trouble is that this storyline is a complete sham.

The fact that colossal stimulus spending, zero interest rates, the purchase of over a trillion in toxic assets by the Fed, and the loosest monetary policy in history have done absolutely nothing to revitalize the economy, has proven that Keynesian policies have been a wretched failure. This is not a surprise to Austrian school economists.

Keynesian policies failed during the Great Depression, and they are failing today. An economic catastrophe caused by loose monetary policies, crushing levels of debt, and appalling lending practices cannot be solved by looser monetary policies, issuance of twice as much debt, and government commanding banks (or, in the case of Fannie and Freddie, “commandeering”) to make more bad loans.

Ludwig von Mises described what happened in the 1920s and 1930s. His explanation accurately illustrates the situation in America today.

“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought on by credit and fiat monetary expansion. The only question is whether the crisis should come sooner in the form of a recession or later as a final and total catastrophe of depression as the currency systems crumble.”

The Roaring Twenties

They don’t call the 1920s roaring because money wasn’t flowing freely and consumers were practicing frugality. The newly created Federal Reserve expanded credit by setting below-market interest rates and low reserve requirements that favored the big Wall Street banks. The Federal Reserve increased the money supply by 60% during the period following the recession of 1921. By the latter part of the decade, “buying on margin” entered the American vocabulary as more and more Americans overextended themselves to speculate on the soaring stock market.

The 1920s marked the beginning of mass production and the emergence of consumerism in America, with automobiles a prominent symbol of the latter. In 1919, there were just 6.7 million cars on American roads. By 1929, the number had grown to more than 27 million cars, or nearly one car for every household. During this period banks offered the country’s first home mortgages and manufacturers of everything – from cars to irons – allowed consumers to pay “on time.” Installment credit soared during the 1920s. About 60% of all furniture and 75% of all radios were purchased on installment plans. Thrift and saving were replaced in the new consumer society by spending and borrowing.

Encouraging the spending, the three Republican administrations of the 1920s practiced laissez-faire economics, starting by cutting top tax rates from 77% to 25% by 1925. Non-intervention into business and banking became government policy. These policies led to overconfidence on the part of investors and a classic credit-induced speculative boom. Gambling in the markets by the wealthy increased. While the rich got richer, millions of Americans lived below the household poverty line of $2,000 per year. The days of wine and roses came to an abrupt end in October 1929, with the Great Stock Market Crash.

Between 1929 and 1932, the market fell 89% from its high. The Keynesian storyline is that Herbert Hoover’s administration did nothing to try and revive the economy. It took Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal Keynesian policies to save the country. It’s a nice story, but completely false. Between 1929 and 1933, when Roosevelt came to power, the Hoover administration increased real per-capita federal expenditures by 88%, not exactly austere.

Excessive Consumer Spending

When examining the BEA chart of GDP from 1929 to 1939, some fascinating similarities with today’s economy leap out. In 1929, consumer expenditures accounted for 72.3% of GDP, confirming that the much-commented-upon American consumerism is not a modern development. In fact, consumer spending peaked at 81% of GDP in 1932 and remained above 70% during the entire depression.

By 1950 consumer expenditures had subsided to 64% of GDP. In 1960, they had fallen to 63% and edged up to 64% by 1970, where they remained until 1980. By 1990 they had ticked up to 66% and by 2000 had reached 68%. The modern-day climax appeared to many to have been reached in 2007 at 70% of GDP. But in a replay of the New Deal playbook, where much of the consumerism was funded by make-work projects and federal transfer payments, the federal government has thrown billions of dollars at consumers to buy houses, cars, and appliances. Consumer expenditures as a percentage of GDP actually rose to 71% in 2009. It should be readily apparent that until consumer expenditures are narrowed to a level that leads to a sustainable balanced economy, the current depression will continue indefinitely.

Bureau of Economic Analysis National Income and Product Accounts Table

The Great Depression lasted from 1929 until 1940. What is not well known is that GDP was at the same level in 1936 as it had been in 1929. In no small part because GDP soared by 37% between 1933 and 1936. The unemployment rate in 1929 was 5%. In 1936, even after GDP had recovered to pre-depression levels, the unemployment rate was still 15%. It spiked back to 18% in 1938 and stayed above 15% until World War II. Tellingly, in 1936, private domestic investment was 21% below the level of 1929.

By contrast, government expenditures surged by 46% between 1929 and 1936. With the government creating agencies and hiring people into make-work projects, private industry was crowded out. The extensive governmental economic planning and intervention that began during the Hoover administration was expanded significantly under Roosevelt. The bolstering of wage rates and prices, expansion of credit, propping up of weak firms, and increased government spending on public works prolonged the Great Depression.

The evidence strongly contradicts the notion promoted by Krugman and other Keynesian worshippers that the supposed 1937-38 Depression within the Great Depression was caused by Roosevelt becoming a believer in austerity. In fact, GDP only dropped by 3.5% in 1938 and rebounded by 8.1% in 1939. What actually collapsed in 1938 was private investment, which fell 34%. By contrast, government spending declined by only 4.5% in 1938, confirming that Roosevelt did not slash spending. To the extent that he eased up on the accelerator, it was by cutting back on jobs programs like those provided by the Works Progress Administration and the Public Works Administration.

The reason private investment collapsed in 1938 was Roosevelt’s anti-business crusade. He denounced big business as the cause of the depression. In March 1938, FDR appointed Yale University law professor Thurman Arnold to head the antitrust division of the Justice Department. Arnold soon hired some 300 lawyers to file antitrust lawsuits against businesses. Arnold launched cases against entire industries, with lawsuits against the milk, oil, tobacco, shoe machinery, tires, fertilizer, railroad, pharmaceuticals, school supplies, billboards, fire insurance, liquor, typewriter, and movie industries.

The Greater Depression and Excessive Debt

Some Conclusions

The mainstream media’s popular narrative about the causes and cure for the Great Depression invariably start with the storyline that the stock market crash caused the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover purportedly refused to spend government money in an effort to reinvigorate the economy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal government spending programs allegedly saved America.

This storyline is a big lie.

The Great Depression was caused by Federal Reserve expansion of the money supply in the 1920s that led to an unsustainable credit-driven boom. When the Federal Reserve belatedly tightened in 1928, it was too late to avoid financial collapse. According to Murray Rothbard, in his book America’s Great Depression, the artificial interference in the economy was a disaster prior to the depression, and government efforts to prop up the economy after the crash of 1929 only made things worse. Government intervention delayed the market’s adjustment and made the road to complete recovery more difficult.

The parallels with today are uncanny. Alan Greenspan expanded the money supply after the dot-com bust, dropped interest rates to 1%, encouraged a credit-driven boom, and created a gigantic housing bubble. By the time the Fed realized they had created a bubble, it was too late. The government response to the 2008 financial collapse has been to expand the money supply, reduce interest rates to 0%, borrow and spend $850 billion on useless make-work pork projects, encourage spending by consumers on cars and appliances, and artificially prop up housing through tax credits and anti-foreclosure programs. The National Debt has been driven higher by $2.7 trillion in the last 18 months.

The government has sustained insolvent Wall Street banks with $700 billion of taxpayer funds and continues to waste taxpayer money on dreadfully run companies like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, General Motors, and Chrysler. The government is prolonging the agony by not allowing the real economy to bottom and begin a sound recovery based on savings, investment, and sustainable fiscal policies. President Obama continues to scorn business by creating more burdensome healthcare, financial, and energy regulations.

Today’s politicians and monetary authorities have learned the wrong lessons from the Great Depression. The result will be a second, Greater Depression and more pain for the middle class. The investment implications of government stimulus programs are further debasement of the currency and ultimately inflation and surging interest rates. Owning precious metals and mining stocks, and shorting U.S. Treasuries will pay off over the next few years.

Gleaning emerging big-picture trends by putting all the puzzle pieces together is the specialty of The Casey Report. Following the theory that only a prepared and well-educated investor is a successful investor, the team of editors analyze current and historical data – and then recommend the profit opportunities that make the trend your friend. Read more here.

October 27, 2010

Jim Quinn [send him mail] is Senior Director of Strategic Planning at an Ivy League university. This article reflects the personal views of Jim Quinn. It does not necessarily represent the views of his employer, and is not sponsored or endorsed by them.

The economic jam we’re in has topped even the great depression in one respect. Never have we had a recession this deep with a recovery this flat. Unemployment has been at 9.5% or above for fourteen months. Congress did something that it’s never done before. It extended unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. That cost more than $100 billion, a huge expense for a government in debt. But now, for many Americans, 99 weeks have passed and there is still no job in sight.It is only going to get worse. One of the interviewees in the CBS report provides insight into exactly how this is going to play out, and it is something I have tried to explain to our 3rd grader, who is attempting to understand what an economic recession means and why we’ve cut his weekly allowance from $7 to $4.

If you’re a regular reader here at DumpDC, you see that we spend a significant amount of time talking about monetary policy as it relates to secession. We also point you toward making purchases of gold and silver, with our emphasis on silver…since it’s cheaper and more readily available to the masses.

We always say that we are not investment counselors, and we’re not. We always say that your reason for buying gold and silver should not be as an investment from which you expect appreciation and profit, but that your reason for buying precious metals should be restricted to wealth preservation only…money as a store of value.

But in a melted economy, there will be a lot of different things that can be used for barter. Today, we want to get you thinking about ammunition in a number of ways. I thought for one moment that I should not write this article for fear that it would give the criminal political class ideas. But truly…I doubt if any of them are visiting this website. And my ideas are not new.

Ammunition is the obvious reason that firearms exist. Firearms make bullets travel fast. Sure, you could insert a bullet into your target manually, but targets usually resist that. Ammunition is a tool, just like the gun is a tool. It performs a specific task.

Those in our nation that wish to restrict our natural right to keep and bear arms have passed laws of every tyrannical stripe in the attempt to get guns out of the hands of the citizenry. But curiously, they have not moved en masse to restrict ammo purchases and ammo ownership.

At the present time…at least in most of the country…no permit nor paperwork is required by ammo dealers to buy or sell ammo. You can walk into most stores…even Walmart…and buy ammunition like you buy a gallon of milk. Pay your money and walk out. That may change, and that’s the reason you should be stocking up on ammo NOW.

And what is a firearm without ammunition? It’s wall art, or a nice collection of finely crafted machinery. A rifle could be a club, but a baseball bat works better.

So, until Washington decides to make a move against ammunition, begin now buying ammunition. Ammo will never be worthless, unlike paper currency. On the contrary…if TSHTF, ammo will have ever-increasing value. Ammo also comes in small portable quantities, just like coins do. And because of the dizzying variety of firearm cartridges, ammo will have trade values down as small as a few cents per round. Imagine being able to buy a pack of Hubba Bubba Watermelon chewing gum for a few .22 LR cartridges!

Buy ammunition this way:

1. Buy small quantities regularly. In the investment world, this is sometimes called “dollar cost averaging.” Prices will fluctuate, but by making regular small purchases, you will probably lower your overall cost. Naturally, always buy stuff on sale…if there is such a thing as ammo on sale.
2. A life rule in the 21st Century is that you should NEVER take a credit card into a gun store or buy anything firearm-related with plastic. Always pay with cash, never with plastic of any kind that leaves a paper trail.
3. Buy more ammo in the calibers of the firearms you own. You can never have too much.
4. Then buy a wide variety of popular handgun, shotgun and rifle ammunition. For handguns, buy .22 long rifle, 9 mm and .45 caliber rounds. For shotguns, buy 12 gauge buckshot, slugs and birdshot loads. For rifles, buy .22 LR, .223, 30.06, .308 and 7.62 x 39 mm cartridges. These are the most popular cartridges, but you really cannot go wrong buying lots of other cartridge sizes.
5. Store it safely at home or another location of your choice. Think about storing at multiple locations. Even think about caching some or burying some in watertight containers. Just don’t forget where you buried it.
6. Ammunition has a very long shelf life, so spoilage is not a critical consideration. Just keep it dry and out of the sun and it should last for years.

Someday, when we’ve reached TEOTWAWKI, and some states have seceded, there will be a period of time in between the USA and the viability of the new seceded nation. You are going to need spendable money and other items of value that can be traded and bartered for goods and services. Ammunition will always be a highly valued commodity, and will likely save your ass in more ways than just leaving the business end of a gun barrel quickly. It could be used to feed your family and help y’all survive until civilization returns.

The political consensus is following the 2010 election, the Tea Partiers and the GOP establishment will breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate their victory and our two-party monopoly system of government will continue as before. A GOP House majority will checkmate Obama and the Democrats in the Senate and political stalemate will result. Many conservatives and a few Washington pseudo-libertarians will claim stalemate is better than a Democrat landslide but they will be wrong.

Like the Titanic, the Washington/Wall Street ship of state hit a Federal Reserve created iceberg under the command of George W. Bush with the recession/depression. Again, like recent evidence suggests, the original Titanic hit the iceberg and sank so fast because of a steering mistake turning the ship in the wrong direction which could have been avoided.

In a similar fashion, both Obama and Bush, following the self-serving orders of Bernanke and Wall Street steered the nation directly into the current depression and coming national debt and dollar collapse by following Keynesian economic principles instead of letting the market quickly resolve the crisis.

Everything you read or see on the establishment propaganda news outlets is just a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic as the ship of state is certainly sinking. The goal of productive American citizens should be to get as far away from the ship of state as possible to avoid the downward pull a sinking vessel exerts on everything in the water as it goes under.

The Establishment Political Consensus Is Dead Wrong

America today is a one-party state much like the Soviet Union, China or Nazi Germany and both nominal political parties are just façades presented to the public to create the illusion of competition and choice. The establishment leadership in both the GOP and the Democrats represent the goals of the same special interests.

Our ability to “throw the bums out” every two or four years is just a release valve built into the political system which guarantees the continued elite control of our political process. Although there are some patriots in national politics in both parties, they never are allowed to take control of either party or the closed political system.

Before the summer of 2011 is over, the Tea Party supporters will already be angry and disappointed as the GOP elites will maintain the status quo and there will only be empty rhetoric rather than political action to control spending, curtail the deficits and limit government. When the coming debt and dollar crisis takes hold, I guarantee the GOP will have an action plan supported by the Democrats which will pass with bilateral support to solve the economic crisis. The solution will be the theft of your private wealth and promised benefits all done in the public interest to save America.

Why Only Nixon Could Go To China

And only the Republicans will be able to steal most of your wealth and get away with it with the acquiescence of the Democrats. Only older readers will remember the above political metaphor as it suggests additional legitimacy for politicians making “tough decisions” can result when strong supporters of a political viewpoint suddenly change their views and direction always in the public interest for a crisis etc. In other words, only Nixon, perceived as a rightwing conservative could have opened the door to China in 1972 as a liberal Democrat would have been criticized, attacked and thwarted by the opposition GOP.

What Asset Will Be lost Or Auctioned?

As America goes under, here are 9 assets and guarantees likely to be stolen by the politicians and then auctioned off to buy more time for the Washington elites of both political parties. Do not believe anything anyone from the establishment tells you as it is always false information.

Social Security Theft – As we see today in France, Social Security retirement ages will be further extended into the future. Wealthy Americans will be “means tested” and entirely forfeit their benefits and Washington will eventually end cost-of-living adjustments for all but the poorest Social Security recipients.

Solution: If you are eligible for SS benefits start taking them as soon as possible even at the lower rate and age currently age 62.

Rising Income & Estate Taxes – This is already a done deal by the Democrats and there will be some minor temporary pushback by the GOP but nothing of substance.

Solution: You might get one more year of the Bush tax cuts so throw all income possible into 2011.

National Health Care Expands – Again, some minor changes by the GOP and Blue Dog Democrats but it will never be overturned and in a few years this travesty will be just as supported by the Republicans as they now support Social Security, the Department of Education and the Patriot Act today. There is no solution.

The Risk of Private Gold Confiscation Will Go Up – When the dollar and Treasury market crashes, Washington will enact legislation against gold investors to curtail your profits, add a confiscatory non-productive asset tax or confiscate your gold with some type of fiat currency exchange. In any case, they plan to end up with your gold as this will be the basis of a restored dollar.

Solution: Move most of your gold offshore in a legal and reportable manner but outside the threat of closed or paralyzed banks, US investment firms and desperate politicians.

Home Values Will Continue To Fall – The long-term effects of the Fed and Wall Street bank created boom and subsequent real estate bust along with the foreclosure crisis now beginning will likely continue to weigh heavily on home prices.

Solution: Wait to buy any property you need at a lower price and walk away from properties outside your residence now sinking further underwater.

Confiscation of Large Retirement Fund Accounts – The long-term confiscation and control idea is to eventually force all retirement benefits under the new automatic/mandatory IRA program where everything will be combined with and managed like your Social Security benefits. Wealthy and productive Americans will find their retirement benefits used to support the trillions in underfunded union, state and local government employee plans.

Solution: When possible, move your substantial retirement assets legally offshore to escape a future liquidity crisis when the theft will occur and drawdown your balances by taking withdrawals as soon as you can without an early retirement penalty.

A National Sales or VAT Tax – This will be a quick revenue generator for the Feds but will probably start out somewhere between 2%–5% and rising quickly after that to confiscatory levels. Americans in low tax brackets may initially be exempted from this tax.

Solution: Make any major purchases sooner rather than later.

An End to the Home Interest Deduction – Again, this will be a quick revenue generator for the Feds but will put additional downward pressure on home prices. There is no solution but never buy anything tangible or even an investment for tax benefits. as tax preferences always change and never in your favor.

An Organized Collapse of the Dollar – The Feds fully hope to get some control over the outstanding national debt externally and internally over transfer payments by depreciating the dollar. How they hope to accomplish this without creating a run and collapse of the dollar and Treasury debt is beyond me but this is their intention.

It really doesn’t matter where you sit on the deck of the Titanic, you have to get off the boat quickly in a lifeboat of your own design. The call for “women and children first” and “there are plenty of lifeboats for everyone” will just be misinformation to enable the leaders of Wall Street, Washington and the Fed to hide their identities, assets and involvement in creating the crisis.

I can’t wait to see Bernanke, Bush and Obama in a lifeboat disguised and dressed in womens clothing along with most of Congress and the Wall Street insiders. May the sharks not be too hungry and the water not too cold so they will suffer longer. Or as Jimmy Buffet put it so well: You got fins to the left, fins to the right and you’re the only bait in town.

Ron Holland is a contributing editor to the Swiss Mountain Vision Newsletter and Freedom Matters published by Appenzeller Business Press.

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Race Realism

‘Man is a mammal and subject to the same biological laws as other animals. All animals, including Man, have inheritable behavioural traits. The concept of complete environmental plasticity of human intelligence is a nonsensical wishful-thinking illusion.’

From titans to Lemmings

“The time for talk has ended, only course of action open to us is WAR!”

"The time for talk has ended, only course of action open to us is WAR!"

The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. — D.H. Lawrence

Ayers’ Plan to Kill 25 Million Americans
Larry Grathwol, Weathermen, William Ayers, Communism, History
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“The most effective informer the F.B.I. ever placed among the Weathermen” (NY Times) Larry Grathwol describes how William Ayers and other Weather Underground leaders cheerfully planned to deliver the United States to foreign occupation, and proposed to murder 25 million Americans.

Grathwohl: I brought up the subject of what’s going to happen after we take over the government. You know, we become responsible for administrating, you know, 250 million people. And there was no answer. No one had given any thought to economics. How are you going to clothe and feed these people?

The only thing that I could get was that they expected that the Cubans, the North Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Russians would all want to occupy different portions of the United States. They also believed that their immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they called the counter-revolution. And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing re-education in the Southwest where we would take all of the people who needed to be re‑educated into the new way of thinking and teach them how things were going to be. I asked, “Well, what is going to happen to those people that we can’t re‑educate, that are die-hard capitalists?” And the reply was that they’d have to be eliminated and when I pursued this further, they estimated that they’d have to eliminate 25 million people in these re‑education centers. And when I say eliminate, I mean kill 25 million people. I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of whom have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well-known educational centers and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people and they were dead serious.

Bring it on! WE WILL FIGHT YOU, WE HAVE BEEN MAKING BOMBS AND BUYING LEGAL AND ILLEGAL WEAPONS FOR YEARS, AND WHEN THE TIME COMES MY FELLOW PATRIOTS AND MYSELF, WE WILL TAKE TO THE STREETS, YOU WILL HAVE TO KILL US TO TAKE THIS NATION, BRING IT!!